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Visual Communication (MA)

Xiaolin Yuan 袁晓琳

When A Chapter Ends publication.

Xiaolin Yuan is a graphic designer and visual communicator. Born and raised in Liaoning, China.

She’s been moving around and lived in many different cities with her mother from a young age. She uses text, flat graphics and generated texture-based images as the main elements of her expression. She mainly uses publishing as the medium of her narratives, exploring themes reflecting her culture and her own personal experience. Recently she was introduced to interactive installation and is currently experimenting with inviting audience interaction in her works. Her previous education includes a BFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2020).


A close-up image of the publication —When A Chapter Ends.

A fixed date up in front, waiting for the decisions to be found. A cruel announcement to be made, at the end of their time, or moving on to a new beginning.

When a chapter of one’s life-long story is called to an end, what will happen to the objects composing and surrounding one’s life? What do we take? What do we leave behind? As a person with slightly hoarding behaviour, it has always been a difficult question for me to handle with. But the ending of this chapter of my life is calling on 23/10/2023. I am forced to face the difficult decisions. 

Objects are never muted. The wind speaks. It speaks its own language. Birds speak. They speak their own language. Objects speak. They speak their own language. 

To me, ordinary objects are not simply unanimated things for people to use daily. Instead, they are never muted—they speak about the past and picture the future; they interact and record; they are the carriers of memory and collectively compose the reflection of the self; their true values should not be measured in coins but are the non-material values embodied within. 

The front cover of the publication and posters.
Labels":", When A Chapter Ends-Part 1, 2023
The front and inner cover of Object Speaking.
Object Speaking, When A Chapter Ends-Part 2, 2023
Inner pages of Object Speaking.
Object Speaking, When A Chapter Ends-Part 2, 2023
Inner pages of Object Speaking.
Object Speaking, When A Chapter Ends-Part 2, 2023
The front cover of The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects.
The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects(cover), When A Chapter Ends-Part 3, 2023
The inner content page of The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects.
The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects(content page), When A Chapter Ends-Part 3, 2023
Inner pages of The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects.
The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects, When A Chapter Ends-Part 3, 2023
Inner pages of the publication part 4.
Pinwheel, When A Chapter Ends-Part4, 2023
Inner pages of the publication part 4.
Pinwheel, When A Chapter Ends-Part4, 2023
Inner pages of Pinwheel.
Pinwheel, When A Chapter Ends-Part4, 2023
Inner pages of Pinwheel.
Pinwheel, When A Chapter Ends-Part4, 2023
A full preview of the publication, When A Chapter Ends.
When A Chapter Ends, 2023

When A Chapter Ends is an auto-topography publication examining the connection between ordinary objects and humans from four different perspectives. The first chapter, “labels(:)” discusses the outer monetary values assigned by society to both objects and humans through the representation of labels; the second chapter, “Object Speaking,” documents the unspoken language of objects by recording the traces of objects speaking daily, interacting with the human body; the third chapter “The Decomposition of Ordinary Objects” decomposes the ordinary objects which collectively construct the external self; and the final chapter “Pinwheels” examines the non-material values that anchored within the ordinary objects that make each object “worth-keeping”. 

Publication display close-up image.
A Luggage Full (display), 2023
Publication inner pages close up.
A Luggage Full (content pages), 2023
Publication inner pages close up.
A Luggage Full (content pages), 2023
Publication inner content pages.
A Luggage Full (content pages), 2023
Publication inner content pages.
A Luggage Full (content pages), 2023
3D model for the external self.
A Luggage Full (the external self 3D-model), 2023
Publication display concept photo.
A Luggage Full (display concept), 2023

A Luggage Full is an auto-topography, involving intimate memories the author has with the evocative objects that she brought to London from home, decomposing a series of evocative objects into 2D unwrapping texture, reconstructing and recomposing a new skin that represents the external self, constructed by the evocative objects. 

The title A Luggage Full is inspired by the same volume of the physical shape of the author and the volume of the luggage she used to transport her objects.

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Royal College of Art

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Kensington Gore, South Kensington,
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